The Summer I Saved You Excerpt

“That’s some interesting shopping you’re doing.” His voice has dropped an octave, and his gaze falls to my chest.

Heat climbs up my neck and I press a hand to my cheek to stop it. His eyes follow, grazing over my skin in a way I swear I can feel. “It’s not...my friend was—” I frantically glance around me, but Molly is nowhere to be found.

Goddammit, Molly.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks.

I raise a brow. “I’m a female in a store’s lingerie section. I’m not the outlier. What are you doing here? And if you don’t have a plausible explanation, I’ll just assume it’s your sex doll’s birthday.”

His mouth twitches. “Kimberly’s birthday isn’t until January. I’m getting something for my mom.”

“What an interesting relationship you two must have.” I turn to the rack of lingerie. “What’s her size?”

He slaps a hand over his face. “She wants a robe, but thanks for putting that seriously uncomfortable image in my head.” His eyes revert back to the black thing I’m still holding. “Shopping for the big date? If you’re wearing that, he’s not going to settle for second base.”

I sigh. “If I’m wearing this, I’m the one who won’t be settling for second base.”

He runs a thumb over his lower lip, his nostrils flaring as if he’s scented prey, his eyes liquid under the store’s fluorescent lights. “So what exactly are you after when that’s on?”

There’s a trickle of delight in my chest. I don’t wear lingerie like this, and I don’t have the money for it even if I did, but suddenly I’m seeing myself through Caleb’s eyes: as a woman who might wear a merry widow on a date. As a woman who might go in with some demands of her own. I grin. “Use your imagination.”

He winces. “I am. That’s the problem.” There’s a rasp in the words, something low and dark and tinged with yearning.

He walks away, broad-shouldered and glorious in that perfectly tailored suit, his words on replay in my head.

I am. That’s the problem.

Those words—the rasp as he uttered them—pulse brightly inside me, deep in my core, so sharp it’s almost painful.

Molly reappears, looking at his retreating form in the distance and then me with pure glee. “Oh my God. I take back everything I ever said about him being a creepy weirdo who’s obsessed with his ex. The two of you were so hot.”

I laugh. “That wasn’t heat. That was the intense awkwardness of having your boss discover you with kinky, role-play shit during your lunch break.”

“Believe me,” says Molly with a small smile, “if I’m reading him correctly, he’s going to be imagining you in that thing for a good, long time. With his dick in his hand.”

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